


some kind of afterlife

by iimpavid



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Journeys to the Underworld, Dreams and Nightmares, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Souls, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-06-25 23:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15651516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid
Summary: "Is that our purpose here? The weighing of souls and forgiveness?""After a fashion, I s'ppose it just might be. But, I confess: I'm more concerned with what comes in between the dyin' an' the judgment, if you take my meanin'.""I'm afraid I do not.""Oh, pshaw! You ain't never been afraid of nothin' darlin'! But you will be."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something in which Hannibal finds himself dead and, somewhere else, Will finds himself very much alive. Winston is a bit more of an Important and Good Boy than we first thought. The ending will probably be happy.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea were a great many things more multivariate and interwoven than the human mind could comprehend.

In death, Hannibal had accepted _that_ much but his present circumstances defied even his lack of expectations. The sea thundered at his back, cold and reeking of salt and granite while around him the cafe bustled, warm and humid. Across from him sat a man whose face would not come to bear. But he was neither charming nor entirely repugnant and Hannibal could not see how the metaphor completed itself.

"That'd be on account'a I ain't the Devil, cher," his companion informed him, lighting a cigarette that materialized between his fingers.

Between them, a plate of beignets sat untouched but still warm and dusted with confectioners sugar. Two china cups of cafe au lait had appeared, too-- where from Hannibal didn't know. No other patrons or wait staff seemed to even be aware of their table's presence. Not two minutes ago a busboy walked straight through it.

"I would never dare to presume that you were."

"Oh, yes you would. But tha’s alright, I un'erstand... Y’know he sure would like you; I'magine it's a disappointment that I'm me, not He, what with _you_ bein' a man of faith and all."

"Unfortunately, I must correct you on that account; I've never been one for the trappings of organized religion."

The laughter that bubbled from his lips was rich and warm and quieted every other sound, even Hannibal's own thoughts. He hummed, immeasurably fond, "You c'n think that if y'like, but that don' make it truer. Any case, that's not what we're here for, is it?" He picked up a cup and saucer and drank daintily and with great appreciation.

Hannibal found he had an instinctive aversion to doing the same. "I couldn't say what we're here for; I have no expectations for the afterlife. Although I am fascinated that there seems to be one. For a hallucination brought on by oxygen deprivation this is incredibly vivid."

His companion helped himself to the beignets. "You really outta try one'a these, Doctor. I guarantee you ain't never had a thing like 'em."

Salt spray stung the back of his neck. The sounding sea reclaimed its place in his attention and with it yawning hunger. But Hannibal found himself demurring, "Perhaps another time."

He licked sugar from his lips with a tongue that was red as blood. "Somebody's been listenin' t'his _mémère's_ tall tales," he teased. "But it's alright, I fo'give you this time, sugar."

"Is that our purpose here? The weighing of souls and forgiveness?"

"After a fashion, I s'ppose it just might be. But, I confess, I'm more concerned with what comes  _between_ the dyin' an' the judgment, if you take my meanin'."

"I'm afraid I don't."

"Oh, pshaw! You ain't afraid of nothin' darlin'!" There came that laugher again, silencing everything else in the universe:  _“But you will be."_

Hannibal awoke to his own noise of animal panic, soft and staid and louder than anything that he’d ever heard after the silence of sleep. His eyes snapped open. The naked wood beams of his Baltimore home’s Hannibal panted. Marveled at the lightness inside his lungs. He thought as he gasped, he’d dreamt of drowning. Either drowning or a house fire, his sleepy mind supplied in explanation of his sweat-soaked bed sheets.

He hadn’t had a nightmare since he was a boy; an uninterrupted span of peaceful nights lasting 34 years only to be broken now for no apparent reason.

With his bedding trundling away in the laundry and coffee percolating on the stove it occurred to him: Will Graham was plagued by nightmares. Given his fascination with Will, it might be some extreme of affective empathy he had experienced. A desire to understand, but an inability to internalize, that had grown so wild with inattention that it wrenched a hold of his sleeping mind.

If that were the case, Hannibal would need to do some pruning and sooner rather than later.

* * *

 

Wednesday morning Elise was already in the office brewing coffee. “G’mornin’ Dr. Lecter,” she yawned.

Hannibal felt his jaw tighten in irritation. She wore what he might expect of an undergraduate in an early lecture, not a professional administrator. Yoga pants had their place and his office was not it. Her lack of professionalism was, as always, a disappointment. He nearly returned her greeting but he stopped short. He looked at Elise again where she stood beside the waiting room coffee maker as if it held the secrets of life itself.

He distinctly remembered killing her. An impulsive act months ago that, ultimately, yielded a wonderful foie gras.

“You doin’ alright, doc?”

“Yes, Elise, thank you. I apologize. My mind is elsewhere.”

“Well that’s alright, there’s plenty of coffee. Or there’s gonna be here in a minute. I’ll make you some.”

“You don’t need to do that, Elise--”

“Course I don’t, and don’t get used to it, but since I’m already makin’ it I might as well pour you a cup too, right? Mr. Aiker’s gonna be here in twenty. You gotta be sharp for that one.”

The financial advisor was notoriously neurotic, hence his need for Hannibal’s services, and Elise made no secret of the fact that he was her least-favorite of their clients.

Cognitive dissonance flared. Hannibal had bludgeoned her neatly, one blow to the head using the base of a desk lamp. The wound had only bled internally. She’d stayed alive long enough to take her home and exsanguinate her properly.

He remembered keenly how she smelled the day she died. The complete absence of fear, trusting her polite and eccentric boss not to so much as do more than offer admonition at the overwhelming reek of her weekend binge habit that had, for the second time in their working relationship, made her late.

The wrong notebook was laid out on his desk. This was an odd year and his case notes were in a tidy, unlined notebook bound in navy-dyed leather. The one before him was black, dated for the year previous. It was centered on his blotter and a second, doubtful glance around his office confirmed that nothing was out of place. He paged through his case notes. The volume was incomplete; pages that should have been filled, particularly a final entry of the year on his first session with Franklyn, were blank. He opened his appointment book.

His standing evening appointment with Will Graham was not written on the 6:00 p.m. line. Indeed, the calendar he was using was an entire year behind where his memory stood.

A sensation like vertigo struck him and he found himself sitting heavily in his desk chair. It was that, or fall.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all are gonna notice some inconsistencies when it comes to verb tense. It's intentional. Will is in the present tense. Hannibal, in the past. Make of it what you will. ;)

Will wakes up bone dry on a beach with a feeling like his head is in a vise and Winston licking at the back of his head. His mouth tastes like the bottom of a boat, algae, and salt. The sea thunders at his back.

Will opens his mouth to inhale and speak-- only to find his lungs heavy with too many liters of seawater.

Winston backs away enough to examine Will's face. Begins to bark as Will twitches with awareness of the fact that he’s suffocating, that in the not-so-distant past he had drowned. That he hadn't been breathing at all-- he’s not sure how long. Seconds, hours, maybe not ever. He can’t remember how to do it.

Will's muscles burn from oxygen deprivation. From head to toe he burned, unable to gain control over his body and then the unthinkable, the blessedly impossible happens: a trickle of salt water works its way up his trachea. Then his body finds enough air to cough. Vomits onto the hot sand. Convulsing to expel a medium that human beings weren't made to filter oxygen from or swallow wholesale. He coughs and gags until something tears in his throat and then coughs and gags some more until his mouth is dry and empty and not even saliva gets in the way of his body's insistence that he breathes.

Will rests his head on his forearms. The tip of his nose still touches the sand but he’s distracted by each breath that crackles deep in his chest and every few breaths a spare teaspoon of seawater will work itself into a froth and he has to hack it up, too. His sides feel torn open from the violence of it. His throat is raw like he’d gone and drank bleach

" _Oh, oh my god, oh my god nevermind. Nevermind. I think he's alive--_ "

Winston flops down beside him and snuffled at his back and nudges at him until he can wedge his snout under Will's armpit and try from there to lick Will's face.

“But you should. You should send an ambulance probably maybe he wasn't breathing a minute ago, I swear to god-- oh my god-- sir! sir are you alright?"

Despite the fact that she’s come close enough to kneel beside him and put a hand on his heaving back the woman was still shouting.

Will goes still and so does Winston.

"Sir? Help is on the way. Can you-- I don't know-- what's your name?"

" _Don't touch me_."

The hand on his back snatches away quicker than from a hot stove. "I-- I don't-- I'm sorry."

The next breath he shoves himself to sit on his knees, ignoring vertigo that comes with the change in elevation, the blinding light of the sun. Winston sits, too, and leans heavily into his side. "Why did you call an ambulance? I’m fine."

The woman had been crying. She had come, he could see, for an afternoon walk down the beach with her dog. The dog was some dozen yards up the beach, panicked and pacing but unwilling to come closer. The woman was afraid of what to do about the corpse she'd found it had melted into a more potent fear of how to explain the fact that she had only imagined a dead man lying on the beach. She felt stupid. The dog still has doubts about Will and more still about Winston and will, if need be, get close enough to try to fight Winston even though he’s sure he’ll lose but--

The woman sniffles, starts talking again and demanding Will's attention again in a way that does nothing to help him work out what, exactly, the fuck is going on.

"You were-- I thought. You were blue. I swear to god, I thought you were dead. I mean I didn't try CPR or anything, I don't know it--"

From the road, he hears sirens.

It’s hazy enough but he remembers: the plan he'd made for Jack, _the real plan_ , Hannibal, Francis, the knife in his back, in his skull, the blood. It distracts him completely from his numb legs and aching eyes. “Yeah, well, I'm fine, so, thanks but that wasn’t necessary."

"Wait, wait, you should probably sit down. Come back--"

The sand is gloriously warm under his bare feet. "I'm fine. Listen, you ever get blackout drunk and wind up in a different state? It happens more'an you'd think. I just gotta get something for the hangover and find a bus ticket back to Penn State and I'll be right as rain."

She catches sight of his back and gasps, "Oh my god but you're bleeding," and tries, briefly, to run after him--

She must not have the wherewithal to catch up him on the steep slope up to the road because the next thing Will knows he’s crossing the hot asphalt unopposed, stepping into the forest with Winston trotting at his heels. An ambulance pulls down to the beach where the woman and her dog stand, hysterical. Free, finally, from scrutiny Will slumps against a birch and sits down among the bluebells blooming all across the forest floor to pet Winston.

"You're a good boy. I can't think of anybody I'd rather see right now," Will tells him. Winston's tail thumps against the ground but falls between the clumps of bluebells, not disturbing them in the slightest. Winston should've been with Alana in D.C. or down in Wolf Trap. This dog didn't have a lick of business up in Maryland but here he was anyway.

"How th'hell'd you get here, anyway?"

**Author's Note:**

> Remember: you comments are the lifeblood which sustain the continuation of my mad ideas.


End file.
